


After the end of the world

by EvaBelmort



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: AU, Archivist Jonathan Sims, canon-typical Martin pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2020-12-29 16:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvaBelmort/pseuds/EvaBelmort
Summary: All Martin wanted was somewhere quiet to get away from the Institute Christmas party. And the Archives were definitely a better choice than Artefact Storage, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely for a kink meme prompt about Martin not becoming an Archival Assistant, and meeting Archivist!Jon much later.

It wasn't that Martin hated Christmas, or parties, or Christmas parties. It was just… this was the first Christmas since his Mum had passed on, and while she didn’t usually want to see him, he’d always made a point of sending her something, and the home had always sent him a card that she had supposedly signed, and this year… Well, it was just… a bit upsetting, that was all. And he’d definitely had a few too many drinks, and he knew he wasn’t doing a good job of covering his miserable mood, and he didn’t want to ruin the party for everyone else, so he was just… going to find somewhere quiet to sit for a bit. 

Everyone seemed to be very determinedly having a good time, and he supposed that made sense. Personal tragedies aside, it’d been a weird year, with the giant Eye appearing in the sky and the Institute having that fire and everything. Still, despite the initial mass hysteria, when the ‘Eyepocalypse’ failed to eventuate and it just sort of… watched everyone, ceaselessly… people just got used to it. 

Sure, it was creepy, and there were still loads of debates on telly and whole conspiracy forums dedicated to what it meant, but at the end of the day you still had to go to work and buy groceries and all that. You just got used to the constant creeping feeling that something was watching you while you did it. 

The crime rate had actually dropped off for a while, although some cynics had opined that it would probably pick up again once people realised that the Eye wasn’t going to _do_ anything about whatever it saw. 

But still, Martin was pretty sure that the lingering weirdness was what had prompted this defiant sort of cheer in all the staff, pretending as hard as they could that things were still normal.

Martin wandered around, looking for somewhere a bit less crowded, but there seemed to be people _everywhere_, not just in the break room where the food and drinks were, but all through the foyer, where somebody had actually got people singing carols, and just loitering in the hallways chatting, cheerful and a little drunk. 

He seriously considered ducking into Artefact Storage, but the door was locked, and he vaguely remembered hearing that that was company policy, something about an incident several years before he started. Probably a good idea, but still. 

He wandered the corridors a bit longer, trying not to look too down when he came across people. At some point somebody handed him another drink, he wasn’t sure what was in it but it had some kind of fruit syrup? It was actually pretty nice, so he finished it absently about the time he noticed the door to the Archives. 

He hadn’t seen any of the Archives staff at the party. He’d never really had much to do with Jon, who had taken over from Gertrude Robinson after she disappeared. Martin had seen him around while he was in Research, might have once written a poem about the way the light hit his cheekbones while he was studying, but Jon was notoriously unsociable and Martin hadn’t wanted to make a nuisance of himself. Jon definitely didn’t like parties, though, and Martin wasn’t sure he’d actually recognise any of the new ones. He’d seen… Melanie, he was pretty sure that was it, he’d seen her once in the library, but that was it. There were a couple of others, but they didn’t really come upstairs. Seemed to be an Archives thing, Tim and Sasha had stopped doing that after a while, too.

That was a bad train of thought, Martin realised, when he felt his eyes starting to well up. He tried not to think about Tim or Sasha, but… Sasha had been there the longest, she’d showed him the ropes when he started, and Tim… Tim had always been so friendly and warm. 

Tim had also had a habit of getting plastered and making out with random people at Christmas parties, without even requiring the excuse of mistletoe. One year it had been Martin, and Tim wasn’t really his type but the kissing had been nice, and Tim had been good-natured about it when Martin was awkward and tried to explain, and Tim had spent the rest of the party draped half in his lap making terrible jokes and… and then he and Sasha both got transferred to the Archives. 

They’d still come up for breaks at first, chatted with Martin if he was around at the time, sometimes he’d go out for lunch with one or both of them. Then the thing with Jane Prentiss happened, and Tim was off sick for ages and came back all scarred and unhappy, and Sasha stopped coming by too, Martin heard she had a new boyfriend or something, and either way Martin didn’t see them. He heard Tim was having some sort of nervous breakdown, but he had never quite got up the nerve to go look for him, see if there was something he could do. They were work-friends, after all, not really close, and he didn’t feel like it was his place. 

And then Sasha had died, in some sort of tunnel cave-in? And Tim had gotten blown up in a wax museum, of all places, and… Martin still wondered if there was something he could have done, but… He wasn’t really any good at actually helping people, he knew that. Probably if he’d tried he would have just made things worse.

Martin scrubbed at his face absently, his hand coming away wet, and he really needed to find somewhere to hole up. He should probably just go home, but he really didn’t think he could cope with the Tube in his current state, and… 

Martin had heard that the other two assistants used to be police, and it sort of made sense since the Archives seemed even more hazardous than Artefacts, and he figured maybe they just didn’t feel comfortable around a bunch of career academics. But either they’d be at the party, or they’d just have gone home, he reasoned, staring at the door.

He nodded to himself, and opened it. 

He managed to navigate the stairs down without killing himself or even dropping his now-empty glass. There was a dim strip of lighting down the side of the staircase, and he could see a few desk lamps breaking up the darkness in the Archives ahead, small pools of yellow floating in the gloom. 

He frowned at that thought, considered trying to make it scan, then gave up after a moment. His head was swimming a bit at the moment, and besides, he hadn’t written any poetry in months. 

Still, the place was definitely empty. Martin nodded to himself, put his glass down carefully on one of the desks, and then slid to the floor and put his back against the side of it. It was peaceful down here, nobody to notice if he wasn’t smiling and make him feel guilty on top of everything else, nobody to notice if he tucked his knees up against his chest, and then buried his face in them and let himself sob quietly. 

For Tim and Sasha, who had been kind to him, and had deserved better than whatever happened to people down in the Archives...

For his mum, who had been a proud and difficult woman right up to the end, and for their relationship, which, despite everything, he’d always hoped he could somehow mend if he could only find the right words...

For the quiet aching emptiness of his life, surrounded by friendly colleagues he could never get too close to, for fear of them realising that his actual history didn’t line up with the lies on his CV...

Eventually, the crying fit wound down to slow, heaving breaths, and he lifted his head, tipping it back to rest against the desk, tears still slipping intermittently from beneath his closed eyelids. 

Finally, he wiped at his face with his hands, and opened his eyes- then shrieked, jerking backwards and slamming his head against the desk. 

There was a- person, probably a person, standing a few feet away from him, in the shadows outside the desk lamp’s feeble ring of light. All he could really make out was a vague silhouette and a pair of eyes, gleaming in the dark.

“Uh-“ Martin managed, voice gone squeaky with panic and cold sweat breaking out down his back. _People died in the Archives,_ he thought shakily, and he was considering whether he could make a run for it, and then the figure said flatly, “Martin Blackwood. What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t deal with pretending to be cheerful at the Christmas party when I’m actually miserable, so I came down here to be away from everyone.” Martin blinked. He must be _so_ drunk, what the hell was he doing blurting that out to- The voice was definitely familiar. “Jon? Is that you? Why are you… here?”

“This is the Archives. I am the Archivist. Where else would I be?” 

Martin opened his mouth to point out that it was the middle of the night and Jon should probably be home in bed if he wasn’t attending the party upstairs, but- there was a peculiar finality to the words. He could picture them graven in stone somewhere. It made it impossible to argue. In the end, he just shrugged helplessly. “Um. Well. I’m… sorry if I disturbed you? I didn’t think anyone was here.”

Jon tilted his head to one side and considered Martin. He was still difficult to see aside from the eyes, and it was a little creepy. Martin considered saying something, or getting up, but when he tried he couldn’t seem to get his mouth or limbs to cooperate, and he wasn’t sure what had been in that last drink but it must have hit him a lot harder than he thought. 

Then Jon blinked, the brightness of his eyes vanishing momentarily, and Martin suddenly felt like he could move again; he took a gasping breath, and why had he been holding his breath? But Jon was moving, stepping closer into the light, and Martin blinked up at him. 

Jon looked exhausted, much thinner than when Martin saw him last, his face covered with scars like Tim’s had been, and even more grey in his hair. The overall effect was oddly sharp, almost predatory, and Martin felt uncomfortably vulnerable huddled on the floor at his feet. 

He scrambled upright, straightening his clothes a bit and trying to look like he hadn’t been bawling his eyes out a minute ago, although depending on how long Jon had been standing there, he probably knew that bit anyway.

All Jon did was point at a door across the room. “The bathroom is over there, and the tea room is next to it. Drink water, and don’t vomit on anything.”

“Uh.” Martin stared at him. “What?”

Jon shrugged, the motion as sharp as the rest of him. “As long as you don’t make a mess, you can stay until you feel up to going home. I suggest a cab rather than public transport. You can afford it.”

And that seemed to be it. Jon stalked away into an office on the other side of the Archives, closing the door behind him before Martin managed to get out a rather bewildered, “Thanks?”

Martin stood alone in the silence of the Archives for a few moments, but Jon didn’t come back out so he shrugged and went to find the bathroom. He washed his face and winced at his blotchy, reddened countenance - he was a messy crier and always had been - and then tried the other door, which led to a break room with a small kitchen. 

He got himself a glass from the cupboard above the sink, but when he went to fill it, he found that the tap was slightly dusty. The water ran fine though, so he took his drink and sat down at the table. That was slightly dusty too. 

Martin drew patterns in the dust on the table idly, trying to figure out what that meant, but his brain wasn’t really coming up with anything. Maybe the Archives staff all went out for food? 

He sighed, and drank some more water. It was a bit like one of those stories about ghost ships or lost colonies, the ones where it looked like the people just got up and walked out without any of their possessions. 

Bit spooky, really. 

Martin glanced around again. Even if they were eating out for lunch, surely they’d at least come in here for tea? ...tea sounded nice, actually. He got up and rummaged in the cupboard again. There was a jar with teabags in it, and they were the same brand Rosie got for the tearoom upstairs, so he figured they probably weren’t anybody’s special stash. He rinsed the kettle out before he set it to boil, since it was dusty too, and then he finished off his water while he waited. 

There were mugs in the cupboard. Martin grabbed a generic-looking white one, and tried not to look at the others, because he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know if Tim and Sasha’s mugs were still in here. Then he hesitated, and took down another plain one. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but it seemed rude not to at least offer, and… 

Jon had remembered his name. 

Martin had remembered Jon’s, too, but, well. Poetry. Cheekbones. Martin remembered all his hopeless crushes. 

Jon, on the other hand, had given no indication at the time that he’d paid any attention to Martin at all, and they hadn’t spoken in… about five years? Martin frowned. He hadn’t realised it had been quite that long since Gertrude had disappeared. But Jon had recognised him, and hadn’t told him to leave either, which was unexpectedly kind. 

So, Martin made two cups of tea. There wasn’t any milk, but there was sugar, so he guessed and put one spoon in for Jon. He’d looked like he could use it. 

Then he carried it across the dimly-lit Archives and knocked on the door that just said ‘Archivist’.

After a moment, Jon said, “Yes?”

Martin opened the door tentatively. 

Jon was sitting behind a desk covered with papers, a laptop open in front of him. “Martin.” He said the word flatly, a fact rather than a query. 

“Um, do you-“ Martin hesitated, suddenly flustered. He was such an idiot, he should at least have asked, maybe Jon didn’t drink tea? But it was too late now, he’d already interrupted him and everything, so he stammered out, “Tea? I- I was making some, and it seemed- Well, I made you one too. Um. If you want?”

Jon blinked at him, just once, then said bemusedly, “...thank you?”

Martin took that as a yes, and sidled forward. Jon didn’t actually move, just watched him curiously, so Martin set the tea on his desk and sort of backed towards the door. “Okay, I’m just going to- And, um, thanks. For, you know, letting me hide in your Archives for a bit.”

Jon looked at the tea, then back up at Martin. “Odd choice for a sanctuary, but I suppose you’re safer here than most.”

Martin hesitated. “I-I am?”

“You belong to the Institute. And the only statement you could give would be about the Eye. We already Know that one.” 

Martin… had no idea what to make of that. “A-alright. Well, I’m… sorry?”

“Don’t be.” Jon looked back to his work, then said dismissively, “Consider yourself lucky; anything terrible that has happened to you was entirely mundane.”

“Oh.” Martin turned to leave, and muttered quietly, “I don’t feel very lucky,” but he flushed as soon as he said it, thinking of Jon’s scars, of Tim and Sasha, and he hoped Jon hadn’t heard. 

Jon didn’t say anything as he left, so Martin closed the door quietly and took himself back to the kitchen. He drank his tea, and then another glass of water, and by then he was feeling much steadier, so he washed up the things he’d used and went to leave. 

He hesitated in the middle of the Archives for a long moment, then shook himself and strode over to Jon’s door. He knocked lightly, and, when Jon said, “Yes?” In the exact same tone, he opened the door and craned his head around it. “Um, I’m going to go now. Thanks again?”

Jon regarded him silently, then nodded. “Goodnight, Martin.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Jon.” Martin shut the door again and headed towards the stairs. He smiled a little to himself as he went; the mug had been sitting by Jon’s elbow, empty.


	2. Chapter 2

When Martin saw the email in his inbox informing him that he was scheduled for a meeting that afternoon with Elias Bouchard, Head of the Magnus Institute, his first thought was _finally_. It was a nauseating mixture of relief and fear, the thought that after years of successfully hiding it, someone had finally bothered to check his references and figured out that he’d lied on his CV. 

The email didn’t actually say what the meeting was about, but Mr Bouchard wasn’t his supervisor and there was no other reason that Martin could think of for him to want to see Martin. Well… unless those rumours about him being a cultist were true, and he needed to sacrifice somebody to placate the giant floating Eye that watched them all from the heavens now. 

(Martin didn’t really understand where those rumours had come from. Yes, the Institute had closed unexpectedly right around the time the Eye appeared, but Mr Bouchard had explained that there had been a fire. There had been a lot of fires that night, and car crashes, and minor injuries of all kinds caused by people reacting badly to the sudden appearance of the Eye. 

And yes, Mr Bouchard had been ‘weirdly calm’ about the whole thing, but he’d worked at the Magnus Institute for decades and was calm about everything from the Archives getting attacked by worms to people trying to stab him in his office. 

Actually, Martin thought it had been really kind of him to text everyone letting them know the building would be closed, and he’d even put them all on special leave so that they still got paid for the two weeks it took to repair the building. Not that Martin was worried about money, he only had himself to look after these days, but still, it was thoughtful. 

Martin had conflicted feelings about Mr Bouchard himself, of course, but they were entirely his own fault for being a fraud: a combination of desperate gratitude, guilt, and quiet terror.)

Martin accepted the meeting request, and just barely managed to talk himself out of packing up his desk before he went up to Mr Bouchard’s office. 

He knocked politely, and Mr Bouchard opened the door immediately, and smiled at him. “Ah, right on time. Thank you, Martin, do come in.”

Martin shuffled in nervously, and took the seat Mr Bouchard indicated. Rather than going to sit behind his desk, Mr Bouchard leaned against the side of it and regarded Martin thoughtfully for a few minutes. 

Martin, already tense, tried not to sweat or fidget under that coolly assessing gaze. 

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you up here,” Mr Bouchard said, dragging Martin out of his increasingly miserable musings on whether he would be able to get himself out of the building before everyone found out why he was leaving.

“Y-yes,” Martin stammered, which was at least better than blurting out ‘to fire me because I’m a fraud?’

“Well, it’s come to my attention that you’ve been spending a lot of time in the Archives lately.”

Martin blinked, his train of thought derailing. His brain sort of whirred frantically, trying to think of some way that he could be in trouble for taking his lunch breaks downstairs, where he was developing a real appreciation for the peaceful emptiness and he could take Jon a cup of tea and get a slightly-bewildered ‘thank you’ for it. 

Jon didn't seem to mind, and he was sure if he was being a nuisance Jon would have said so, and Jon had told him that the other Archive staff had all quit so it was just him down there, and surely that couldn’t be healthy for him, and Martin had never seen Jon take a break, and he was starting to wonder if he could maybe leave a sandwich on Jon’s desk with the tea, see if Jon would eat that in the same absent-minded fashion.

“You aren’t in any trouble,” Mr Bouchard said firmly, dragging Martin’s attention back to the present. “Jon is more than capable of dissuading people from bothering him if necessary, and I haven’t had any complaints about your work suffering. I called you here to ask if you’d like a transfer.”

“To-“ Martin blinked. With that lead-in, there was really only one place he could mean. “To the Archives?”

“Yes.” Mr Bouchard smiled. “You are well within your rights to refuse, of course. But if you were interested, well. I’m sure you’re aware that Jon is a little short on Assistants these days.”

“Oh,” Martin said blankly. Maybe he was being sacrificed after all. Tim and Sasha had both died there, and Jon had been hospitalised more than once since he’d taken the job, too. Martin didn’t know what exactly had happened to the newer ones, but the fact that they’d all decided to quit rather spoke for itself. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened? With the previous three?”

Mr Bouchard shrugged. “We… restructured, a few months ago, and one of Jon’s requirements was that they be offered the chance to resign. And I’m afraid they all did.” He gave a little shrug, and no further explanation, much to Martin’s frustration. “At any rate, Jon _will_ keep insisting that he doesn’t need any Assistants now, but he’s also quite committed to his original goal of digitising the entire Archive and finally getting everything properly catalogued, which is an enormous undertaking and I’d rather he not try to do it all on his own.”

“R-right, yeah, that’s- That would be a big job,” Martin agreed uncertainly. No wonder Jon looked so tired all the time. And, well, it didn’t sound dangerous? 

But this was the Magnus Institute. 

Artefact Storage didn’t sound hazardous either but he’d seen what was left of Jill Henderson’s foot, and he never went there if he could help it.

“Now, there’s no rush with this project,” Mr Bouchard said firmly, “I don’t expect miracles. At the moment Jon is recording audio versions of statements, so all you would be doing is scanning the handwritten originals, uploading them to our database, and adding transcripts. It won’t be the most exciting work, but it does need a good deal of patience and attention to detail, which are definitely your strengths. And Jon already seems to like you, which is good. He can be a bit… prickly.”

That didn’t sound too bad, Martin thought. He really didn’t want to die, though.

Mr Bouchard made an amused sound, and Martin flushed. Okay, cultist or not, there was no way the man could actually read minds. Right?

Mr Bouchard’s smile widened, sliding from politely friendly to something a little more unsettling. “You look rather nervous, Martin. Will it help you make up your mind if I promise that since we… restructured, things are much more stable, and Jon will no longer require Assistants who can handle themselves in a knife fight?”

“Is that-” Martin gaped at him. “That can’t have been a job requirement, right?”

“Not officially, no. The last few years have been… difficult. But I assure you that’s all over with, and we won’t have any further issues that can’t be handled by the Archivist with a tape recorder. Alright?”

“R-right. Uhm.” Martin hesitated. It was true that he wasn’t really _into_ the whole... research thing. Everybody else seemed to have their pet theories, their particular avenues of investigation that they were borderline-obsessive about, while he felt like he was just going through the motions, putting facts together and writing reports because… 

Honestly, he didn’t even know why he was still here. Since his mother had passed away, he didn’t even need the money that badly. He had enough saved up now that he could have left and found another job, maybe tried studying, but- it just seemed like so much effort, so he hadn’t bothered. Even the constant low-grade fear that somebody would figure out he was a fraud had faded into an almost-comfortable background uneasiness. The concept of change seemed impossibly far away.

“Would you like some time to think about it?” Mr Bouchard asked mildly. “As I said, there’s no rush.”

Martin looked up at him. He was watching Martin, and for a moment he felt the same prickling terror that he felt when he looked up at the sky now, the same sense of being assessed, weighed and measured, all of his secrets laid bare. 

But if Mr Bouchard really could read minds, then he already knew Martin was a liar and was offering him the job anyway. If he couldn’t… well, a change of scenery might do Martin some good. And if his job was more mindless data entry than the research he was doing now, well, maybe the tedium would help him get back into writing poetry. 

He’d sort of given it up, the last few months, just from lack of inspiration.

“No, that’s okay,” Martin said at last. “I- If you think I’d be a good fit, then I’d like to. I’m, uh, going to hold you to the bit about no knife fights, though. I’ve never even thrown a punch.” He tried to make it a joke, hoped he didn’t come off as too nervous. “And… thank you for the opportunity, Mr Bouchard.”

“Please, call me Elias.” Mr Bouchard looked pleased, and Martin felt himself relaxing slightly as he was handed a new contract to sign. “Well, there we are. I’ll take you downstairs, and let Jon know.”

Martin, trailing behind him, blinked. Was Jon not expecting an assistant?

Mr Bouchard, or rather Elias, led Martin down the stairs and into the Archives. He could admit that it was a bit eerie, but that was probably just the quiet, the room full of shelves stacked with boxes and the empty desks, their footsteps muffled on the carpet and not making a sound.

Elias tapped on Jon’s office door, and then opened it and went in without waiting for an answer.

Jon was sitting behind his desk, which was covered in files as usual, and he looked up with a frown. “Elias?” 

Elias padded over and leaned against Jon’s desk, glancing down at the mess of papers. “How’s the project coming along?” 

“Fine.” Jon muttered, then sighed. “Slowly, obviously, but fine.”

Elias nodded. “I thought you could use some help. I believe you’re familiar with Martin Blackwood? He’s agreed to become your new Assistant.”

Jon’s eyes narrowed, and Martin felt… there was something unsettling about the way he stared up at Elias, unblinking and focussed. “Why do I need an Assistant, Elias?” he demanded, and all the hair stood up on the back of Martin’s neck. 

Elias shivered, but answered mildly, “To do data entry and administrative tasks, that’s all. I’m not expecting any trouble, and if any does eventuate, I think we’re more than capable of taking care of it ourselves, Archivist.”

Jon maintained the scrutiny for a moment more, then relented with an irritated noise. “I suppose, if he doesn’t mind.” His eyes flicked briefly to Martin as he said, “It’s going to be fairly tedious.”

“N-no, I don’t mind,” Martin stammered, knowing there were some pretty serious undercurrents in this room that he was missing, and also he was pretty sure that was not a reasonable tone to take when addressing your boss, but Elias didn’t seem to care.

Jon sighed. “Alright, fine.”

Elias beamed at him. “You’re welcome. His paperwork is all up to date, so I’ll leave you to it.”

He patted Martin on the shoulder on his way past, and said brightly, “Don’t worry, Jon will take good care of you. He doesn't like surprises, but he’s lovely once he gets used to you.”

Jon’s glare at their boss’s back did not look lovely in the least, but he got up with a sigh and a wistful glance at the stack of papers. “Right, come on.”

There were three desks out on the Archive floor, each set up with a computer and a neat array of stationery. Jon waved a hand. “Pick whichever desk you like.” He snagged a folder from one of the shelves and handed it to Martin. “Here, this is instructions for uploading files and text to the database.” 

Then he turned to another shelf, which contained neat rows of boxes, each labelled with a series of numbers. “These ones are done, so you can start here. Some of the statements were given in person, those ones you’ll have to listen to to make the transcript. The others will have an audio recording by myself or one of my assistants, along with the original handwritten statement. It should be easier to just type those up from the written statement. There are errors in a few of the tapes, from back when I was-“ he cleared his throat. “Some of the earlier ones. Anyway. If you have any problems, ask me.”

“Uh, right.” Martin said blankly. “Thanks? So, I just… get started?”

Jon frowned at him. Having his full attention was… intense, and Martin was already feeling off-centre. 

Martin felt abruptly sure that Jon could see right through him, that Jon knew he didn't belong here and he was going to call Elias back and get him fired and-

Jon shrugged. “You know where the amenities are. Take breaks whenever you like, don’t get food on the files. And… I have no idea what your hours are, but I’m guessing Elias would have sorted that out. So. Did you need anything else?”

“Uh, no?” Martin blinked, relieved, as Jon looked away. “R-right. Okay. He said I should just keep my usual hours, so… I’ll just… go get my things from upstairs, if that’s alright?”

Jon waved a hand vaguely, already heading back to his office.

Martin glanced around the empty Archive, shivered, and trotted back to the stairs.

He arranged his few bits and bobs on the desk, and then waded into the manual, which was actually pleasantly straightforward. Once he was pretty sure he knew what he was doing, he fetched the first of the boxes, labelled 7150101. It had a tape in it, but there was also a written statement, so Martin started typing that up. 

It was an account by a seventeenth-century astronomer of… him drowning a rival astronomer in a pond, and then his victim came back from the dead and proceeded to creep the narrator out. There was a post-it note on the spine of the box that just said ‘Dark’ which… it was, but Martin wasn’t sure about the colour commentary. 

Martin shook his head, and typed it up, squinting at the messy loops of the man’s cursive handwriting. He uploaded a scan of the statement, added the transcript, and then added tags for the names of everyone involved, and… there was a field that said ‘Related Entities’. 

Martin frowned at it, flipped through the manual, and then looked at some of the other records in the database. The field was filled in for all of the records already up, with things like ‘Slaughter’ and ‘Hunt’. Martin looked at the note again, ‘Dark’ scratched out in jagged letters, and shivered. 

Then he took a deep breath, picked up the box and sidled over to Jon’s door. There was no answer to his knock, and he waited a few minutes and knocked again, and then finally he just opened the door.

Jon was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by files. There was a tape recorder sitting next to him, whirring softly, and for some reason he had another one on his desk as well. 

Jon looked up, stared at Martin blankly for a moment, and said. “Martin Blackwood, Archival Assistant.” Then he blinked, cleared his throat. “Sorry, what do you need?”

“Uh. I’m just getting started, and I was wondering about the, uh, the Entities? For the database.”

Jon looked at the box. “There should be notes on them; that one’s the Dark. We’re using Smirke’s list, because it’s a bit more succinct than the others.”

“Right,” Martin agreed. That sick feeling was back in the pit of his stomach, because he knew who Robert Smirke was, but he had no idea what slightly-spooky architecture had to do with Entities, and maybe this was it, maybe this was _finally_ the thing that tripped him up, but… he asked anyway. “Uh, look, is that- I mean. I, sorry, I just… have no idea what you’re talking about?”

That got him Jon’s full attention again, that breathtakingly intense focus that made him feel small and terrified, and then Jon scowled darkly. “Elias didn’t- Right. Of course he didn’t tell you.” He turned his scowl to towards the ceiling, and said loudly, “Because he’s an _irritating prick_.”

_Definitely_ not an appropriate tone for talking to your boss, although, obviously, he wasn’t in the room, but not Martin’s business either way. He cleared his throat nervously. “So… Can _you_ tell me? Whatever it is I’m supposed to know?”

Jon looked back at him, but his eyes were distant, as if he wasn’t really looking at Martin at all. Then he sighed, and got to his feet. He stalked past Martin and out to the shelf, selected a statement box, and handed it to Martin. “Listen to this one. It needs a transcript anyway, and he explained it more succinctly than I would.”

Martin looked at the tape, helpfully labelled ‘0173006’ with a post-it note that read ‘End. Hunt.’

“And… what is it?”

“A conversation I had with Gerry Keay, three years after his death. Also his statement about his life, his complicated relationship with his mother before and after her death, and his time working with my predecessor Gertrude Robinson.”

“Right, sure. You talked to, what, a ghost?” Martin tried to sound scathing, but his voice wavered a little because, well, he couldn’t really picture Jon, his face covered in worm scars, making jokes about the supernatural.

“Something like that.” Jon shrugged one bony shoulder. “Come and see me when you’re done.”

There was a tape recorder in the drawer of his new desk. Martin put the tape in, fished his headphones out of his bag, and started the tape.

When it finished, he sat very still and breathed. Okay. If this was a practical joke, Jon and his friends on the tape had put a lot of effort into it, and- Jon had sounded genuinely emotional in the recording, frightened and exhausted, frustrated and confused. Martin had heard that Melanie-the-assistant had been a podcaster, but why would they go to all this effort? And... Well... This was a more plausible explanation for the Eye than anything he’d seen on the news.

He took the tape out of the recorder, and went back to Jon. “Um, so… We all work for the Eye?”

“Beholding, yes. The ritual worked, hence the uh,” Jon waved a hand skywards.

Martin glanced at the ceiling for a moment before realising what he meant. “O-oh! Well, so… was that. You?”

“Yes. And Elias, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Martin agreed, then said dubiously, “So, you. And Elias. Aren’t... human?”

Jon sighed, and then he looked at Martin, and said, “_What is it that you’re so afraid we’ll find out?_”

His voice thrummed with strange undertones that hooked somewhere behind Martin’s ribs and pulled, and the answer fell out without any conscious decision of his own. “I lied on my resume. I don’t actually have a degree in parapsychology.”

His back hit the wall, and he stared at Jon, feeling all the blood drain from his face. “You- I- I don’t-“

“Breathe,” Jon told him irritably. “And stop worrying about it. I don’t care, I’m not qualified to be a Head Archivist either.”

“W-what?” Martin managed shakily. 

Jon rolled his eyes. “Elias’s hiring criteria aren’t really focussed on academic credentials. And you can assume that he’s known the whole time and finds it amusing.”

Martin felt his mouth drop open. “But. But how? And why would he have hired me?” he asked plaintively.

“I told you, he’s a prick,” Jon muttered. “You spending the last however-many years terrified that somebody would Know was probably delightful. And he can read minds, of course he knew.”

“Oh.” Martin sagged against the doorframe limply. “I- Sorry. This is… it’s a lot, you know?”

Jon shrugged. “You get used to it. Or, well, you die. If you want to take some time off to adjust, I’ll sign it off as sick leave for you.”

“That’s- Uh. Thanks? I might… maybe just today?”

Jon shrugged again. “If you need longer, just let me know. And if it’s too much, Assistants can actually quit these days.”

“_These days_?” Martin tried to stop his vice from cracking. He wasn’t sure he could process any more unpleasant revelations, but he couldn’t _not_ ask. “Could you not quit before?”

“Erm.” Jon hesitated, mouth twisting. “Well, you could, but only as a last resort, since it… involved blinding yourself.”

“Fuck off!” Martin said reflexively, then winced. “Ah, sorry, I didn’t-“

Jon snorted. “I said something similar when I found out, don’t worry about it. Just- Go home, think about it, and let me know when you’ve decided. Alright?”

Martin nodded, still feeling a bit dazed, and went to grab his bag. 

He got home, made a cup of tea, and then just stared at it until it went cold, because… He should probably be concerned? About all this stuff. But mostly he just felt kind of… satisfied, weirdly, at having answers, a, a framework that all of the weird shit the Institute dealt could fit into. 

As if being able to classify what had eaten a person made their story less awful somehow, and... now he was wondering if that was just him or if working for the Eye was making him into a horrible person who cared more about information than people’s lives. Maybe he should quit, go find a nice job in a real library or something, except… He didn’t want to. 

He wanted to go back, to stay down in the archives with Jon and learn terrible secrets, and that was probably a bad sign, but honestly, this was the most engaged Martin had felt in years, so he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Jon looked surprised when Martin came in for work the next morning, but also sort of pleased, and when Martin brought him a cup of tea he actually looked up from his papers long enough to take it instead of letting Martin leave it on the desk like he normally did. 

Their fingers brushed, and Martin shivered, felt his cheeks heat faintly. 

He was sure that Jon’s, “Thank you, Martin,” was warmer, more approving, and he couldn’t help the curl of pleasure in his stomach as he shuffled back to his desk.


	3. Chapter 3

You couldn’t call it _boring_, working in the Archives, not with what they were actually archiving. But it really was as quiet as both Elias and Jon had warned him. Martin did a lot of typing and scanning, made tea occasionally, and tried not to let the creepy stories get to him. 

Jon seemed to be making more of an effort now that Martin was there officially: he’d gone from largely ignoring Martin’s existence to actually greeting him when he came in, which was nice. Jon was... definitely odd, though, and not just whatever he’d done to make Martin answer his questions before. 

Whenever Martin tried to talk about anything other than work, Jon only seemed to be actually paying attention about half of the time, and every now and then he would shift uncomfortably or wince at something innocuous Martin had said. If Martin asked what was wrong, he’d just shrug and change the subject. 

So... they spent a lot of time talking about work. It helped that Martin was actually sort of fascinated by trying to understand how it all worked, and Jon had an encyclopaedic level of knowledge about all the different kinds of Entities and how they interacted with the world and each other. 

Martin had asked how he knew all this, and Jon had said something vague about Beholding and ‘field study’ but he’d been rubbing his hand, the one covered in burn scars, so Martin didn’t ask again. 

He was gradually working his way through the statements, and the ones that were recorded in person were… Well, he was getting the impression that learning all this stuff hadn’t been easy on Jon, and he was a bit concerned that maybe Jon’s weird behaviour had more to do with trauma than spooky powers.

Martin _was_ considering asking Elias if Jon was okay, but he wasn’t sure if he’d be overstepping there. 

Also... Elias was sort of intimidating. 

He tended to visit the Archives at least once a day to see Jon, and he and Martin exchanged polite greetings while Martin tried frantically not to think about anything objectionable. This meant he usually ended up concentrating very hard on what he was going to have for lunch, and Elias seemed amused rather than offended. 

Martin tried, with mixed success, not to be irritated by that, or the possibility that Elias just thought he was obsessed with food.

After the nerve-wracking exchange of pleasantries, Elias would disappear into Jon’s office without bothering to knock, and be in there anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so. A couple of times a week he coaxed Jon into going out for lunch with him and they were gone for several hours. When Jon came back he seemed less tightly wound, sort of… lazily content. 

Martin very carefully did not ask where they went. Jon’s personal life was none of his business, and he absolutely did not think about it anywhere that Elias might be able to hear. 

  


(He definitely thought about it at home, though, lying in his bed picturing Jon’s long, elegant fingers, and the angle of his jawline, and the way he leaned into Elias’s hand on the small of his back, and Martin wondered where else Elias might have touched him and whether Jon would lean into that too, go soft and pliant under Elias’s hands, let Elias take him to bed and work all the tension out of him. It was none of Martin’s business! But Elias was quite good-looking if you ignored the ‘smug telepathic asshole’ thing and Jon was… Well, spending this much time around him was making Martin remember why he’d had that crush back when they were both in Research...)

  


Besides Elias, the only people who came downstairs were the occasional member of the public who wanted to report a weird incident to the Archivist. Martin figured the front desk must notify Jon when they were coming, since he always came out to wait and then ushered them straight into his office. 

He persisted in using tape recorders for the statements, which seemed counterproductive if they were supposed to be making everything available digitally, but... the tape recorders were weird. They turned themselves on and off, they moved around when you weren’t paying attention, they never seemed to run out of batteries, it was definitely a _thing_. 

Martin had added it to his mental list of ‘things to ask Jon about when I’m prepared to have my worldview realigned yet again’. He wasn’t quite there yet on the tape recorders - he had to keep using them, after all.

When you took into account all the oddities working in the Archives seemed to involve, the weirdest thing was how much Martin liked it. He’d always thought of himself as a people-person, but it was an astonishing relief not to have to put on a good front or risk people asking him if he was okay, to only really see two people who already knew all the worst things about him anyway. 

After about a month, Jon started coming out of his office to have tea in the break room with Martin sometimes. He didn’t even bring work in with him(!), although Martin had yet to see him actually eat any food. 

Martin wasn’t sure if not eating was an Archivist or a Jon thing, though. Jon was always in his office when Martin arrived and still there when he left, but he must be going home because he changed his clothes every day. So it was possible that Jon ate breakfast early and dinner late and didn’t like to eat at work?

Martin had so many questions: Was it just eating in front of Martin that was a problem? Did he eat when Elias took him out for lunch? Did he not eat at all, because of his weird Eye powers? If Martin brought him food in his office, would he eat it?

Martin wasn’t sure that ‘occasionally sharing tea and an awkward conversation about books’ made him and Jon close enough for deeply personal questions just yet, though. Besides, Jon was too thin and looked like he hadn’t slept in at least a week, but he’d looked exactly that level of unhealthy the entire time Martin had been coming down to the Archives, so he wasn’t getting any _worse_. 

...Martin was not now thinking about vampires always looking exactly as they did at the moment of their death. Jon drank the tea! Martin had seen him do it! He’d even seen Jon outside, once when he’d ducked out to get a few things during his lunch break and come back just as Jon and Elias were leaving. Jon might have squinted a bit in the daylight, but he certainly hadn’t caught fire or crumbled into dust. 

Martin sighed, trying to get his mind back to work, and then remembered that he’d actually seen a statement about vampires on the shelf, and went to work on that.

  


Jon and Elias were _definitely_ not vampires. All those romance novels were _way_ off, and Martin hoped fervently that he never had to meet one. He shuddered, typing up the transcript and feeling a surge of sympathy for this Trevor Herbert fellow, who seemed to have had a difficult life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Martin had known his mother’s birthday was going to be bad. It had always been something of an emotional trial for him, between steeling himself to call and then dealing with the pitying apologies from the care home staff when she refused to speak to him. When he woke up that morning, he’d looked at the date and actually felt a swell of relief over not having to pick up the phone. 

Of course that was immediately followed by sickening guilt for being glad that his mother was dead, and by the time he got to the Archives he had worked himself into a miserable spiral of depressive thoughts.

He managed to dredge up a smile and a “Good morning!” for Jon, who frowned at him and said tentatively, “Martin, is everything alright?”

Martin felt his shoulders slump. Clearly he couldn’t even get smiling right, which really shouldn’t surprise him. 

“Everything’s fine, Jon. How’s the-” He faltered to a stop when Jon winced, and it was really all too much. He had no idea what he’d done to disappoint Jon, besides, you know, being himself and turning up, which was probably enough, now that he thought about it, and-

“Sorry,” Jon said, breaking into the running tally of his failures, “I didn’t mean to pry, it’s just-” He paused, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Look, this might be a lot to ask, but can you... not lie to me?”

“What?” Martin said blankly.

“It… itches,” Jon said, looking at the shelf behind Martin’s shoulder like it was fascinating.

“Itches,” Martin repeated. 

“Yes. I can always tell, and it’s… unpleasant. If you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, that’s fine, just-” Jon shrugged, “tell me to piss off, or that it’s none of my business, or something.”

Martin stared at him. Jon never seemed to mind that, was quite happy to stare back while Martin thought. Eventually, Martin said, “So... is that why you make that face sometimes when I’m talking?”

Jon nodded, then made a confused sort of see-sawing motion with his hand. “Mostly? I also spontaneously know random bits of information, which is distracting. I am… sort of a walking invasion of privacy.” He gave Martin a pained smile. “It’s a Beholding thing, so I can’t exactly stop. I’ll do my best to keep anything I get to myself, if that helps.”

Martin fidgeted with his shirt cuffs for a moment. “Okay, so you... have an inbuilt lie-detector?”

“Something like that.” The smile turned a bit wry. “Though lie detectors only tell you if the person involved thinks they’re lying. I can also tell you if they’re wrong.”

“Wow, you must be fun at parties,” Martin said without thinking, and Jon gave an inelegant snort of laughter. 

“I, ah, I wasn’t fun at parties _before_ I could correct people with encyclopaedic accuracy, but there are... a number of reasons why nobody but Elias talks to me if they can help it. I‘ve also never been particularly good at valuing the feelings of other people above my own curiosity.” He shifted uncomfortably, then sighed. “Look, I’m not- I don’t _want_ to make you uncomfortable? But I inevitably will at some point, so, please say something when it happens. I can at least promise not to screw up the same way twice.”

“Oh.” And… Martin had sort of figured that Jon was alone down here out of choice, but maybe everyone else had left because he actually creeped them out? That didn’t seem fair, especially if it was something he couldn’t help. Martin felt his spine straighten a little involuntarily. _He_ wasn’t going to abandon Jon just because of a little eldritch weirdness.

“I’m not fine,” Martin said flatly. “It’s my mother’s birthday, but she died last year, so I’m in a terrible mood.”

Jon blinked in surprise, but there was an edge of that unnatural interest to his gaze. “Martin- I told you, you don't have to-“

“I… Don’t mind.” Martin tensed slightly, but then relaxed, realising as he said it that he actually meant it. 

(He _would_ try not to think too much about how much he enjoyed it when Jon paid attention to him, though. No need to make Jon uncomfortable.) 

Jon looked equally startled, and Martin said slowly, feeling it out, “Normally, when people ask how you are, they don’t actually want to hear about it, and if you _do_ start going on about all your personal problems, they get bored or annoyed. So you just say you’re fine.”

“I am aware of the purpose of social lying, Martin,” Jon muttered, but he was still entirely focussed. 

“Well, if you _actually_ want to know how I am, I suppose I can tell you. Or-” Martin flushed slightly, because there was no way he was telling Jon to piss off, “or tell you to mind your own business, I suppose.”

Jon nodded, the tension easing out of his frame slowly. “Thank you, Martin. I know there have been… a lot of adjustments, since you joined me down here. And I have to say, you’ve handled them a lot better than I did, or any of the Assistants.”

Martin thought about Jon’s voice on the tapes, ragged with exhaustion, cracking with fear and frustrated confusion. “Well, it sounds like you had to figure out a lot of it on your own and, and people kept trying to kill you? I’ve had it pretty easy by comparison; haven’t even been kidnapped once!”

Jon gave an amused little huff, and then touched Martin’s shoulder lightly for a moment. “Let’s keep it that way, shall we? I don’t like losing people. And… take it easy today. If you need a break, or to go home, or... if you’d like to talk?“ His mouth pulled tight again for a moment. 

“To me, not the Archivist, to be clear. Also... I’m not sure if you know, but the Institute does also have a counselling service available to all employees? It’s as confidential as anything is now, and I hear they’re quite good. Melanie was going for a while, she said it helped. Obviously your circumstances are a bit different, but if anything I expect they’d have _more_ idea what to do with someone dealing with grief and anxiety, rather than, ah, Archive-related issues.”

“Oh, I- I hadn’t really considered it, I suppose.” Martin frowned. “I mean, it’s normal, isn’t it? To be sad when someone you love dies. And then after a while it gets easier?”

Jon nodded. “Well, yes. But that- that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard, and it might help? Talking to someone who’s there just to listen to you. After all, they’re being paid, so they aren’t going to get bored or annoyed if you talk about yourself.”

“I- I’ll think about it,” Martin said slowly, considering the possibility. His high school English teacher, who’d said a lot of encouraging things about his poetry, had suggested to his mother that he see a counsellor. She’d flatly said that they didn’t have the money for it, and that Martin would grow out of whatever his problem was. 

He hadn’t, but he’d gotten better at hiding it.

“I’ll email you the information, then.” Jon nodded, as if that was settled. “And you know where to find me if you need anything.”

“Um, yeah. Thanks, Jon.”

Jon nodded again, and padded back to his office with an armful of files.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's been a while...  
And yes, Martin is going to therapy, because I am deeply uncomfortable writing the s1 Jon-Martin dynamic as romantic and also he's having a bad time and he's allowed.


	4. Chapter 4

Therapy was both better and worse than Martin had expected. There was a lot more practical stuff than he was expecting, about looking after himself and mindfulness and relaxation exercises. Some of that was pretty nice, actually. It was the other stuff that was hard.

Martin had always told himself that it wasn’t his mother’s fault she was unpleasant to him: she’d had a difficult life, she was sick, she could have done much worse. His new therapist asked him to think about his situation as if it had happened to somebody else, a friend that he cared about. Would he tell them that it was their own fault and they should have just tried harder? And she asked him to consider that you can love someone and be angry with them at the same time. 

She also made him talk about his own feelings a lot more than he was used to, and it was surprisingly hard, he was so used to just squashing everything down and labelling it unimportant. And he knew, intellectually, that that wasn’t healthy, but he’d spent so many years focussed on just surviving that he’d never really had time to unpack it.

Being around Jon was actually really good for that sort of thing: even mild, polite fictions made him frown, so Martin had sort of given up, and would just say he was hungry or he had a headache or the computer system hated him, instead of trying to convince Jon he was fine. He hadn’t been this honest with anybody in... ever, and it was a very strange experience.

  


One Thursday a couple of weeks later, Jon came out of his office wearing a disgruntled scowl, and handed Martin a form. “Someone’s coming down to make a statement. Get them to fill this out, would you?”

Martin blinked at it. It was the standard Statement form, like most of the ones he’d been typing up. “If you’re busy, I could record it for you?” he offered hesitantly.

“Don’t bother,” Jon muttered. “It’s nonsense anyway. Don’t add it to the database, either. Just put it in this year's box over there.” He pointed out a set of shelves down the back filled with boxes, each labelled 'DISPROVED' in red marker with a year underneath. 

Martin raised his eyebrows. “Okay? What did they say to Reception? It must have been pretty bad…”

Jon paused. “No, I can just... tell. If someone has actually experienced something supernatural, or if there’s a mundane explanation.”

Martin thought back to the first time he’d come down to the Archives, when Jon had said he didn’t have a story to tell. “Oh. And… you can tell before they actually get down here?”

“Yes.” Jon was watching him intently, and from the way he went tense and wary whenever he explained one of his weird quirks, Martin had a pretty good idea of how badly the previous assistants must have reacted, so he made a point of thinking it over, and not freaking out. 

“Well, that must save a lot of time,” Martin offered, after some consideration, and Jon relaxed, that sense of focussed attention easing. It never quite went away these days, but Martin was gradually being able to distinguish between ‘general sense of being watched by the Eye’ and ‘Jon paying attention to him particularly’. 

(There was also a disquieting feeling whenever Elias was around, but Martin wasn’t sure how much of that was actually creepy telepathic fingers in his brain and how much was just paranoia about said creepy telepathic fingers.)

“Yes,” Jon was saying, “we wasted a lot of time initially, looking into people who should probably have been talking to the police or a doctor.”

Martin hesitated. “Do we… make recommendations?”

Jon frowned. “I- I suppose we could, but most of the paper statements are years old. The problem has generally resolved itself one way or another.”

“Okay,” Martin agreed, “but… this person who’s about to come downstairs. What do we do?”

Jon’s frown deepened. “Take their useless statement. Tell them we’ll get back to them if anything comes up?”

“No, I mean, if there’s something really wrong, and they should be talking to the police? What if something happens to them?”

“That’s not really… what we’re here for, Martin.” Jon said slowly.

“We’re not here to help people.” Martin could feel how flat his voice had gone, and he had no idea what his face was doing but Jon winced.

“I _did_ explain about Beholding, Martin.” Jon's voice had gone wary, his shoulders hunching. “We’re just here to watch and catalogue.”

“Okay, yeah, I get not interfering with other ‘powers’, or whatever." Martin agreed. "I mean, I don't necessarily _like_ it? But if that's how these things work, then yeah, okay, you deal with the actual monster stuff. But you’re saying we can’t help people with regular human problems either?” 

“No, I’m saying bothering about them at all is-" Martin raised an eyebrow. "It’s a waste of time and resources, that-" Martin raised the other eyebrow. "Oh, for pity’s sake.” Jon turned his back on Martin, looking up in the direction of reception, and- 

For a long moment, Martin couldn't move, couldn't even breathe, all of his muscles locked up as his entire hindbrain shrieked at him to stay still or _something terrible_ would notice that he was there. Then Jon sighed, shaking his head slightly, and whatever he'd been doing stopped.

Martin took a shaky breath as Jon turned back to him and said irritably, “His neighbour’s cat has found a hole in the foundations and has been running around inside the walls of his house. Do with that information what you will.”

He stalked back into his office and shut the door with a decisive click, just as the door at the top of the stairs opened and a nervous-looking man began to make his way down.

  


Martin knocked on Jon’s door after the man had left. Jon looked up as Martin leaned around the door, and his face was carefully blank.

“Um, thanks for that,” Martin said, smiling ruefully. “I mean, he figured I didn’t believe him when I suggested he get his house inspected rather than recommending an exorcist, and he was quite rude, but... I appreciate knowing that he isn’t being stalked by a serial killer or something.”

Jon sighed. “That’s fine, I just… The Eye only cares about knowledge and fear, Martin. Not people, not really. They’re… food.”

“Okay, but that’s the Eye, not you, right?” Martin paused, feeling a sudden chill as a thought struck him. “Wait, are you- Will you get, uh, in trouble for telling me what that guy’s problem was?” 

Jon gave a startled huff of laughter. “The Eye doesn’t- send me angry memos about wasting company resources or anything, Martin. It’s not… It’s difficult to explain. The entities are… not human. They might be made up in part of human fears, but they operate more on nightmare logic than anything the waking mind can pin down, and they don’t... think, exactly? They just… are.” He shrugged. “Sorry, I’m not sure if that helps, but- Basically, so long as I go on feeding it, the metaphysical embodiment of the fear of being Seen doesn’t make value judgements about my behaviours or care what else I do.”

“Right.” Martin thought about that. “So… Theoretically, you _could_ offer advice to all the people who come in to give non-Entity statements?”

Jon groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “I suppose I could, yes. Fine, if you don’t mind dealing with their inane problems, I’ll tell you what they actually are. Acceptable?”

Martin beamed at him. “Definitely. Thanks, Jon! I’ll try to make it as painless as possible, alright?”

Jon’s mouth twitched up at the corner. "Honestly, not having to speak to them personally is probably worth it.”

“Yeah, after that guy earlier, I really don’t blame you,” Martin shook his head. “What a prick.”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Sometimes people _want_ their house to be haunted, because it’s much more interesting than shoddy construction work they then have to pay to repair.”

“Yeah, well. Wait, are there ghosts? Is that a thing?”

Jon blinked. “Ah. Sort of? There are End-related cases of people, or things that used to be people, who are still around despite being dead, and a number of other Avatars who _should_ be dead, myself included, but… not the kind of ghost you’re imagining, no.”

“Right…” Martin said slowly. He remembered hearing that Jon had wound up in hospital for a while; it was why he hadn’t been at Tim’s funeral. “So... basically, if there is a real supernatural presence in your house, it’s something awful and will probably end badly for you.”

“Now you’ve got it.” Jon sighed again.

  


Martin was finally starting to feel like he belonged in the Archives, so when he found half a packet of desiccated crisps in one of the cupboards, he decided he was fed up with the state of the kitchen. Instead of going home once his shift was up that evening, he dug out a cloth and some cleaning spray and set to it. 

He cleared out the cupboards, cleaned the benchtop and the table, swept the floor, and then started washing all the cutlery and dishes. And it was fine, he was feeling pleasantly industrious, right up until he found the mug that said ‘Too Hot to be Straight’ in rainbow font, and he just… stopped. 

Tim had loved that mug. 

He hadn’t seen anything of Sasha’s, but she broke at least one mug a year, so it was possible that he just didn’t know which one was hers, and that was somehow worse, the idea that he might be holding her mug and not know, and he didn’t even realise he was crying until Jon said, “Martin? Is something wrong?” and when Martin turned to look at him he was all blurry.

Martin sniffled a bit, wiped at his eyes, and said hoarsely, “It’s, it’s nothing. Sorry, am I in your way?” 

Jon didn’t say anything, but he winced slightly, and Martin gave a choked laugh, because he really didn’t know why he’d even tried that, when it was obvious he wasn’t okay. His eyes welled up again, and he turned back to the sink, grabbing for the damp dishcloth to scrub at his face. 

“Sorry, I’ll just, just finish these, and then I’ll be out of your hair. I didn’t mean to-“

“Martin,” Jon said, much closer. “You don’t have to-“ He fell silent, and when Martin looked up his gaze had fixed on Tim’s mug. “Oh,” he said, very softly. “I forgot- He didn’t have any family to pick up his things, and I- don’t come in here much.”

“R-really?” Martin stammered, disbelieving. He just… couldn’t imagine Tim being so… alone, somehow. 

Jon picked up the mug from the draining board and cradled it gently. “No, his parents both died when he was in his early twenties, cancer and a car accident. He and his brother didn't really keep in contact with their few other relatives, and then he lost his brother to the Stranger, which was what drove him to the Institute.” He sighed. “Elias likes hiring people who won’t be missed if they vanish. Less paperwork, that way.”

“Oh, that’s-“ Martin wiped at his face again. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so- We weren’t even- I don't even think he would have said we were friends, you know?”

Jon looked up at him, and for once it wasn’t the hair-raising pressure of the Eye’s power that held Martin trapped in his gaze, just raw, entirely-human grief. “I’m glad. Someone _should_ mourn him, and I don’t have the right, not anymore.”

Martin swallowed, because he had no idea what to say, and Jon looked… fragile, suddenly, which was terrifying, and- impulsively, Martin took a step closer and hugged him. Gently, giving Jon time to step away, but Jon just stood there and let Martin pull him close, and then slowly, slowly, still holding the mug in one hand, Jon leaned into him and slid his free hand around Martin’s back. Martin allowed himself a moment to feel a completely-unrealistic surge of protectiveness, before he drew back and let him go.

Jon was looking at him, of course, but that awful shattered expression had been replaced by something soft and thoughtful.

He glanced around the now-clean kitchen, and then down at the mug again. "Thank you, Martin. It looks much better in here. I suppose I haven't really been paying attention."

Martin shrugged awkwardly. "Oh, well. I was just- all the dust and that, it bothered me. The cleaners don't really come down here, I guess?"

Jon shook his head. "Nobody but Elias does, if they can help it. And you, now. I- I am glad you did, even if I probably shouldn't be."


End file.
